Adding or editing a quote item

SECURITY  Security level with access to CRM and object permissions to add or edit All Opportunities & Quotes, or edit Mine if you are the owner of the Opportunity associated with the quote.

NAVIGATION  New/Edit Quote > Save & Open Quote

NAVIGATION  My > Quotes > click a quote or context menu > View/Edit Quote Items

NAVIGATION   > CRM > Search > Quotes > context menu > General > View/Edit Quote Items

You can add one or more of the following item types to a quote: Labor, Product, Service, Charge, Expense, One-time Item Discount, and Shipping.

There are three ways to add items to your quote:

  • Use the New Item option on the Quote Items page
  • Import items from an existing quote. Refer to Importing items from an existing quote.
  • In addition, if a sales order is associated with your quote, you can add items to the sales order. You add items from the Items tab on the Sales Order Detail page. Those items are automatically added to the quote. For information on sales orders, refer to Searching and managing sales orders.

On the Quote Items page you can also add additional quotes to an opportunity that already has one or more quotes, change which quote is the primary quote, and specify how to group the items in the list of quote items. Refer to The Quote (Quote Item) page.

How to...

To add an item to a quote, do the following:

  1. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above.
  2. Click New Item and select the item type you want to add to the quote. A window will open for the item type you selected.
  3. Click one of the selector icons to the right of the Item Name field and select a quote item from the Search or Selector page that will open.
  4. Populate fields as required.
Field Name Description
Cost Average | High

This field appears on product quote items if procurement is enabled. It displays both the average and the high vendor cost for the quoted product. The field is read-only and hidden from users who do not have permission to view internal cost data.

Discount %

This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow and is always optional. It lets you apply a discount as a percentage of the unit price.

This field is linked to two other fields: Unit Discount and Line Discount. Entering a value in this field will calculate the values in the linked fields.

On the Quote Item page, the discount is shown both as a monetary amount and as a percentage. On the quote preview and the published quote, only the monetary value is displayed.
Extended Price

This field appears on entities that need to factor in quantity and possibly discount. It is a calculated field that cannot be edited directly. The value in this field = ((Unit Price - Discount)*Quantity).

Gross Profit

Gross profit is the amount of revenue you earn after deducting costs associated with the service or product you sell. This field appears on quotes and opportunities. It is a calculated field that cannot be edited directly. The value in this field = ((Unit Price - Unit Cost)* Quantity) or (Total Revenue - Total Cost). This field can only be calculated for items that have Unit Cost information available.

Item Description

The Description field appears on many Autotask entities. On entities like ticket, task, note, and to-do, the Description field is a core part of the data record. Wherever it is available, it tracks essential information about the record. This field is often prefaced with the entity name. For example, Quote Description.

Enter a detailed description of the entity instance, the issue with which the customer needs help, or the service that they requested.

Item Name

This field appears or is enabled in entities that are part of the sales-to-billing workflow and is always required. It can be populated manually, but we recommend that you select the item name from an item selector whenever possible. Multiple fields, including Description, Tax Category, Unit Cost, and Unit Price can be filled in automatically, and speed and consistency are improved.

To select an item, hover over the New Item drop-down menu and select an item type. The following options are available:

Labor

 

This option lets you select a role/hourly billing rate from the Search Role table. Use this if you want to bill for labor by the hour, or intend to use a Time & Materials contract. Refer to Adding billing roles.

In addition to quoting labor by the hour, you can sum all labor in a project proposal that is linked to the quote and add it to the quote as one quote item. Check the Use Proposal Project box. All labor items of the Proposal Project that you tied to this quote on the Edit Quote page will be rolled up into a proposal total. The proposal total will populate the Unit Price field.

NOTE  Labor entered here is a proposal and does not create a time entry.

Product

This option lets you select one or multiple products or billing products.

If the product you want to add to your quote is not in your product list, click the icon next to the Item field to add the product to the list. Inventory level permission to add products is required. Refer to Searching and managing products.

IMPORTANT  You are able to select a billing product on a quote. However, tiered pricing will not work: the cost and price will always be $0.00. Also billing products cannot be added to the contract from a quote, they must always be added manually. As a result, we do not recommend that you add billing products to a quote.

Service

This option lets you select a service or a service bundle. Refer to Setting up your services and Setting up service bundles.

If you click the Contract Setup Fee button, you can manually enter a Contract Setup Fee.

Charge

This option lets you add a generic item from the Material codes page. Material codes include Block, Retainer, and Per Ticket purchases, so you can add pre-paid labor to your quote.

Expense

Select this option to add an expense from Billing Codes > Expense Categories tab to your quote. This lets you pass travel expenses through to your customer.

One-Time Items Discount

This option lets you apply a one-time discount to one-time items only. The discount does not apply to services because they are billed on a recurring basis.

This option is not available when adding items from a sales order.

Shipping

Select this option to add shipping costs to your quote. Click the selector icon to open the Shipping Type Search page.
Line Discount

This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow and is always optional. It lets you apply a discount as a fixed monetary amount per line item.

This field is linked to two other fields, Unit Discount and Discount %. Entering an amount in this field will calculate the values in the linked fields.

On the Quote Item page, the discount is shown both as a monetary amount and as a percentage. On the quote preview and the published quote, only the monetary value is displayed.
Markup

This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow. It is hidden from users who do not have permission to view internal cost data. It indicates the difference between Unit Cost and Unit Price as a percentage.

When you select the item name, the Markup % field is populated but it can be edited.

MSRP

The manufacturer's suggested retail price. This field appears on quote items, but it is hidden from users who do not have permission to view internal cost data. This field is read-only.

Optional

This check box appears on quote items. It indicates if the quote item is optional. Optional items will be grouped separately on the published quote and will not be converted to charges or billing items when you run the Won Opportunity Wizard.

NOTE  You can also use the right-click menu on the Quote Items table to make items optional or remove the Optional setting.
Period Type

This field appears on entities where you can set the time increment between payments. It determines the billing frequency.

Contracts:

On recurring services only, select from: Monthly (default), Quarterly, Semi-Annual, and Yearly.

IMPORTANT  You will not be able to change the Contract Period Type after you save the contract.

Products:

For products, the period type is typically One-Time.

Services:

On a quote item, the period type is inherited from the service or bundle and cannot be edited.

The choices are Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annual, and Yearly.

When the service/bundle is assigned to a contract, the period type will be used in conjunction with the contract period type to determine the time interval at which the service will be billed.

NOTE  Once a service/bundle is saved, the Period Type can no longer be edited.

• If the service/bundle has a longer billing period type than the contract, the service/bundle will be billed in its entirety. If the service/bundle period type is quarterly and the contract period type is monthly, the service/bundle will be billed for the entire quarter on the next contract billing date.

• If the contract billing period is longer, the service/bundle will be billed for the number of times that would have occurred since the last billing. For example, if the service/bundle period type is quarterly and the contract period type is semi-annual, service will be billed twice on the next contract billing date. The table below illustrates the combinations of monthly and quarterly periods for services/bundles and contracts.

Billing Period Price per Period Contract Billing Period Due on Jul. 1 Due on Aug. 1 Due on Sep. 1 Due on Oct. 1
Monthly $10 Monthly $10 $10 $10 $10
Quarterly $10 Monthly $10 - - $10
Monthly $10 Quarterly $30 - - $30
Quarterly $10 Quarterly $10 - - $10

Subscriptions:

It is possible to use a One-Time subscription period for a straight product sale, but the recommended method is to bill products as a ticket charge, contract charge, or project charge. Refer to Adding or editing a ticket charge.
Quantity

This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow. It indicates the number of units being quoted or billed and defaults to 1.

Tax Category

Tax categories allow you to account for the fact that not all products and services are taxed at the same level, even in the same tax jurisdiction. They are associated with billing codes or, when quoting labor, with the role, and inherited by the quote item.

Together with the tax region selected on the quote or invoice, the tax category supplied by the billing code determines the tax rate on each billing item.

If your Autotask instance calculates taxes for products and services and your billing codes are set up completely, this field is populated automatically with the following exception:

  • Contract setup fees are not set up with a billing code, and thus lack a tax category. You can manually select a tax category for the setup fee. This tax category does not flow through to billing. When you run the New Contract Wizard (once the opportunity is won), you are able to select a taxable billing code, and its tax category is then applied to the setup fee.

Refer to Configuring your tax table.

Unit Cost

Unit Cost is the internal cost of the item, or the amount the vendor charges you. This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow, but it is hidden from users who do not have permission to view internal cost data.

When you select the Item Name, the Unit Cost is populated from the source list (if available), but it can be edited.

Unit Discount

This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow and is always optional. It lets you apply a discount as a fixed monetary amount per unit.

This field is linked to two other fields, Line Discount and Discount %. Entering an amount in this field will calculate the values in the linked fields.

On the Quote Item page, the discount is shown both as a monetary amount and as a percentage. On the quote preview and the published quote, only the monetary value is displayed.

Unit Price

This field appears on entities that are part of the billing workflow. It is the customer price of the item before a discount has been applied. When you select the item, the Unit Price is populated from the source list (if available), but it can be edited.

Charges:

If you selected a material code and no charge defaults apply, this value is populated from the Material Code list. If contract charge defaults are configured for the material code selected, they will override the Admin settings for the charge.

This field will be disabled for contract charges created by block, retainer, or per ticket purchases. By default, it will display the per-block, retainer amount, or incident rate for the purchase. However, if you used charge defaults to make these non-billable, the charge will not be billable to the customer. Refer to Charge Defaults for more information.

NOTE  If Multi-currency is enabled, this field or column is displayed in the customer currency.

Accept the amount or enter a new unit price. Note that it is possible to enter a negative amount, which will flow through billing.
Use Proposal Project

To sum all labor in a project proposal and add it to the quote as one quote item, select the Use Proposal Project check box. In the drop-down list, select the project.

All labor items of the proposal project that you associated with this quote on the Edit quote page will be rolled up into a proposal total. The proposal total will be populating the Unit Price field. Refer to Quote labor based on a project proposal.
  1. Click Save & Close or Save & New. The item is added to the list.
  2. For quotes with multiple items, select an option from the Group By menu if you want the list of quote items to be grouped by Period Type, Product Category, or both.

IMPORTANT  Procurement must be enabled to reserve a stocked item on a quote.

If you select an inventory product for your quote, you can reserve a stocked item to make sure it is available when the opportunity is won. Refer to Reserving a stocked item on a quote (Procurement required).

If you delete a quote item that is based on a stocked item or units, those items or units will revert to Available.

If Procurement is enabled, this table also displays the average cost and highest cost for all on hand stocked items associated with the product. For information on Procurement, refer to Introduction to Inventory.

IMPORTANT  If Procurement is enabled and the product is subject to procurement, the When quoting or creating charges for inventory products, use the following unit cost (note: if On Hand = 0, the Product's unit cost will be used) system setting determines the unit cost. The unit cost may differ from the current unit cost.

In addition to quoting labor by the hour, you are able to sum all estimated labor in a project proposal and add it to the quote as one quote item.

To quote labor based on a project proposal:

  1. Create a project proposal for your customer in the Projects module. The proposal will contain a list of tasks to be accomplished, estimated hours, and resources assigned to the tasks in certain roles. Refer to Adding a project with new content and Using project templates.
  2. On the Quote Item page, select Edit Quote to open the Add/Edit Quote window. Select the Project Proposal Name from the list of projects for this customer. Then save the updated quote. Refer to Adding or editing an Autotask quote.
  3. On the Quote Item page, select New Item > Labor.
  4. Select the Use Proposal Project check box. All labor items of the Proposal Project that you tied to this quote on the Edit Quote page will be rolled up into a proposal total. The proposal total will be populating the Unit Price field.
  5. Click Save to close the New Quote Item window and add the item to your list.

NOTE  Tasks must have resources and estimated hours assigned to appear on the quote.

A sales order associated with an opportunity includes the items quoted on the closed opportunity. Those items appear on the Items tab of the Sales Order Detail page.

From the sales order detail Items tab, you can click New Item to add an item to the sales order. That item is also added to the associated quote. It will enter the procurement workflow. For details on the New Item form, see Add items to the quote, above.

NOTE   You cannot add a One-Time Discount item to a sales order. For more about One-Time Discounts, refer to the description for "Items" in the table under Add items to the quote.

When you add a new Product item, if the product selected is not associated with a material code, you will be prompted to select one. The material code you select becomes the default material code for the selected product.

A new ticket, project, or contract charge is created for the item and attached to the ticket, project, or contract to which the other sales order items are attached. If there are no other ticket, project, or contract charges on the sales order, the new item is associated with the ticket that was automatically created in the Post Sale queue when the opportunity was closed. This is the same process used by the “Convert Quoted Items to Billing Items” option in the Won Opportunity Wizard. Refer to Closing opportunities you have won.

NOTE   If you add a new item to a sales order with a status of Fulfilled, the status is NOT automatically updated.

How Multi-currency impacts quotes

If you are creating a quote in a customer currency, the internal currency values for those quote items will be saved based on the exchange rate at the time the item is added to the quote.

If the quote is edited after the exchange rate has been changed, a window will give you the opportunity to update the values in the internal currency using the new exchange rate.

Note on rounding

The line item totals are calculated using up to 4 decimals, but display only two.

EXAMPLE  If you enter 72.425 into the Unit Cost field, 72.43 is displayed.

In certain scenarios, it may appear as though a calculation error has occurred. The discrepancy is explained by rounding that takes into account decimals that are not displayed.